McKinley, the second IA-64 processor due next year may have been delayed again, suggests chip analyst Linley Gwenapp. He doesn't offer anything to back up his speculation, but the EE Timesreports that Intel has pulled a McKinley technical paper it was scheduled to give to a semiconductor conference that starts in San Francisco today.

Hewlett-Packard's announcement of major amounts of Linux support at the New York LinuxWorld Expo was supplemented at the Linux Expo in Paris last week with the announcement of preloaded Linux distributions on some of its server products and the formation of support and training teams throughout EMEA, writes Bruce Tober.

MandrakeSoft, France's long-time favourite boxed Linux distribution in terms of retail sales is now also number one in the US, according to company officials citing PC Data figures at the Third Annual Linux Expo in Paris last week, writes Bruce Tober.

Microsoft's Product Activation technology has triggered a row in the company's official Whistler beta newsgroups, with testers threatening defection to Linux or piracy over the matter. The irate testers - who, as far as we know, haven't actually been hit by a real live Product Activation Whistler build yet - seem to have been sent further up the wall by the intervention of a Microserf, who referred them to a couple of FAQs on the site.

Whistler and Office 10 will be officially sold as Windows XP and Office XP respectively. XP stands for experience in Microsoft's book, but maybe the US Army Airforce's use of the two letters gives a more appropriate explanation.

Computers in all their various guises are making us stupid because we're relying on them too much instead of giving our own brain cells a workout. That, at least, is what researchers from a Japanese university are saying.

'Sorry mate, you can't come in here to be made redundant wearing jeans...'

GamePlay hired "club-style bouncers" to help prevent any "bovver" at its offices on Friday, according to insiders at the troubled company. We're not sure if they were dressed in black-tie or whether they blended in with baggy T-shirts and fatigues. Either way, they stood there looking menacing, "glaring" at people - no doubt keen to stop anyone nicking kit in revenge for being booted out. What a way to carry on...®

The US House Committee On Energy and Commerce has released its schedule of events and its much-heralded review of ICANN's global top level domain selection. It will take place this Thursday in Washington, starting at 10am.